More interesting information December 23, 2006

This book is really messing with me. I am just in shock that things like this actually happened on American soil and that it has been swept under the carpet. There are lots of people still alive who must remember the Battle of Oxford, when Federal Troops occupied the college campus; when rednecks, klan members, and trouble makers from across the nation gathered to overthrow the federal government in Mississippi; when U.S. Marshals, National Guard, U.S. Army and a couple of incredible ministers battled it out with thousands of riots, shooting tear gas at point blank range, protecting each other with unloaded weapons, marching through fire to reinforce the already present troops, and plead with individual students to hand over their bricks, rocks, bottles, etc and go on home, respectively. How could this be forgotten? How is it possible that this story has surprised me so? Did my grandparents hear about this on the news? Was the cover-up so good that unless you were there, you didn’t even know about it?
The rioters destroyed cameras and beat up press members so there are very few photographs of the beginning stages of the riot and none of the full blown affair.
I am also shocked at the amateurishness of the President, his aides, and Governor Bennet, of Mississippi.
There were moments of heroism. The Army Commanders recieved orders to leave their black troops behind, to avoid further offending the Southerners. This division of the Army was fully integrated and removing the blacks from the group would cripple it, removing most of the sergeants and many others in key positions, not to mention seeing to defeat the purpose of the whole thing. The Commander tore up the orders and the seven confirmation order and disobeying a direct order from the President of the United States of America, sent all of their troops into the fray. The Mississippi National Guard were federalized and ordered in to support the U.S. Marshals and attempt to end the riot. No one was sure how many troops would obey orders to march on their fellow Mississippians but not one man defected. They, as a whole, knew that they were Americans first and that law was law. They were Army today and they would follow orders as duty required. They didn’t like it but they obeyed and acted as true soldiers.

Oh, by the way, I don’t know if I ever explained what this was all about. An Air Force veteran wanted to enroll in the University of Mississippi, a.k.a. Ole’ Miss. He was honorably discharged from the Air Force and had promoted as he should. The only problem? He was black. The problem wasn’t even that he wasn’t white; Asians and Mexicans and other nationalities were welcome at Ole’ Miss but blacks were not. After two months of “negotiations” between the Governor and the federal government, which consisted mainly of the governor promising certain things to the Attorney General and other things to his constituents, and consistently breaking his promises to the Attorney General and the President himself, things escalated due to more lies, manipulations and basic stupidity by all parties involved.

Well, I need to get to bed. We have a big day tomorrow and I must sleep.

I am sickened….. December 22, 2006

I am sickened. I am sickened at my “education”. I am sickened at the “historians” who have conspired together to keep the truth from us. I am sure that they had good intentions…no, I am not sure. I don’t know why they lied. Perhaps as I continue to study and read non-textbook, non-fiction the answers will become clearer. Let me read to you an excerpt from the book that I am reading…

“Beyond the obvious precedents of the Civil War and Little Rock, American Presidents had deployed troops within the nation’s borders a number of times before. In 1794 President Washington used federal troops to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion tax revolt along the Western frontier. When fifty thousand citizens rioted in Boston in 1854 as U.S. Marshalls rounded up escaped slaves, troops were used to force the slaves onto southbound ships. President Grover Cleveland called out troops twice in 1894: in Montana to recover a train stolen by a gang of unemployed protesters called Coxey’s Army; and in Illinios during the Pullman Strike. Woodrow Wilson dispatched the regular army to Colorado in 1914 to keep the peace during coal-mine strikes, and Franklin Roosevelt used troops in 1941 to seize the strike-afflicted North American Aviation defense plant in Los Angeles.
In July 1932 Herbert Hoover ordered U.s. Army chief of staff Douglas MacArthur to clear the nation’s capital of the remnants of the Bonus Army, a force of veterans demanding immediate payment of their wartime bonuses, two of whom had been killed in a clash with city police on July 28. General MacArthur, sporting jackboots with spurs and flanked by a young Major Dwight Eisenhower, strutted eastward on Pennsylvania Avenue supervising an attack force of calvary, tanks, infantry, and machine gunners. The soldiers advanced with drawn sabers and fixed bayonets, fired two thousand rounds of tear gas, and pushed the veterans out of the city. Dozens were injured in the clash, and an infant died from inhaling the gas.
Riots were nothing new to the American republic, either. In the 1834 city elections, the mayor of New York had to call in calvary and infantry to suppress street battles among thousands of civilians. New York was the scene of the lethal Astor Place riot in 1849, when thousands of poor Irishmen attacked the Astor Place Opera House to protest the appearance of a famous English actor. The National Guard was called in, and twenty-two people died in two days of fighting. The savage Draft Riots in July 1863 plunged New York into four days of total anarchy, as several herd of ten thousand rioters each rampaged through Manhattan. The rioters, who were enraged by unfair draft laws, were finally subdued with musket and artillery fire by Union troops fresh off the battlefield at Gettysburg, but not before the riots killed at least one hundred people, including a dozen blacks.
Race riots, which were described by sociologist Funnar Myrdal in his classic study An American Dilemma as “the most extreme form of extra-legal mob violence used to prevent Negroes from getting justice,” erupted in East St. Louis, Illinois in 1917 (killing some forty-five blacks and twenty whites), and in thirty cities in 1919 (killing some forty-five blacks and twenty whites). “The breaking point,” wrote Myrdal, “is caused by a crime or a rumor of a crime by a Negro against a white person, or the attempt of a Negro to claim a legal right.”
The worst racial atrocity of twentieth-century America took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921 when as many as three hundred blacks were massacred by armed white Tulsa citizens. The carnage was triggered by false rumors of an attack on a white female elevator operator, and saw the thriving thirty-four-block black district of Greenwood burned to ashes, leaving thousands homeless. The event was so horrific that it was purged from the history books for nearly eighty years.
In the “Zoot Suit Riot” on 1942, a mob of one thousand whites, acting on rumors of servicemen’s wives being molested, rampaged through downtown Los Angeles, beating Mexican-Americans and blacks, causing many injuries but no fatalities. The following year in Detroit, on the hot Sunday night of June 20, a crowd of one hundred thousand blacks and whites sharing the integrated Belle Isle recreation area began shoving and scuffling, which blossomed into thirty hours of street battles that killed twenty-five blacks and nine whites. FDR was forced to send federal troops in to occupy the city for six months, and he also sent troops into New York the following month in the wake of a riot in Harlem that killed five and caused widespread property damage.”

I don’t know about everyone who reads this, but I am appalled. I am not so much appalled by these events as by their cover-up. I went through American history, from both a secular and a Christian perspective, and neither mentioned the vast majority of these atrocities. We have been fed this bull crap idea of the “good old days”. What a crock. There were no good old days. People were people then, just like they are now. They had riots. We have riots. America wasn’t more “Christian” then. Maybe more hypocritical, but not more like Christ. The South, presented as more conservative and “religious”, was filled with rampant racism. I am not talking about recognizing that races and cultures are different, I am talking about the kind of racism that says that blacks are sub-human, stupid, immoral, having…”a cerebral cortex fourteen percent thinner than that of the average white brain.”
These are all excerpts from An American Insurrection; The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962 by William Doyle. I haven’t finished the book yet; I am actually only 107 pages into a 318 page book. Another 50 pages of notes and bibliography are at the end.
I am just in shock. These are important events. Studying the Civil Rights Movements of the ’60’s would have been much more meaningful if I would have had some idea of what was really happening then. I can’t imagine living in fear the way the blacks in the South must have. They had no representation and no way to get any. They had no rights and no way to get any. They were being oppressed. For some reason that was just glossed over in History class.
I can tell you one thing. Our daughter is not going to learn History from a text book. Oh, we may read through one and do the assigned homework so that she can get a high school diploma, but it will be supplemented by books like this, books that are willing to look at the dark side of our nation, at our humanity, our brutality and hopefully, we will also find books that look at our courage, compassion, and steadfastness. But we will not depend on the “historians” to give her a true view of what happened then nor “experts” to give an idea of what’s happening now.
I encourage you all to get a book from the library that will make you think and ponder and maybe incite you to change something, a mindset, a habit, a thought process. We must grow or we will die. Our minds will die if we do not challenge them. We must not become stagnant in our thinking. If we feel that we have figured it all out, we have begun to atrophy and must take immediate action to reverse this most horrifying disease.

Mindless Ramblings of a Fevered Mind December 17, 2006

Okay, I am not actually fevered. But I feel like I should be. My head feels like it is swelling to really, quite grotesque proportions. My sinuses are so full that I don’t think my brain is really able to effectively communicate with the rest of my body. My throat hurts and every now and then I have one of those wonderful coughs that makes your chest feel like someone is standing on it while wearing cleats. Oh, and my ears are plugged up. I don’t know if I am just crazy but when my ears feel like this, I teeter on the edge of insanity and emotional breakdown. I don’t feel like I can hear but everything is too loud. So I spent $20 at Target today buying drugs, drops, vitamins, juice and syrup all in an attempt to get me through this with my mental health intact. But I forgot to buy more Kleenex. I have half a box to get me through the night. I have gone through 2 or 2 1/2 boxes of tissue in the last two-three days.

So, unfortunately, I don’t really have anything else to write about. I feel like crap. I know that I should be sleeping more but I can’t sleep with my head this full of snot. I know I should be eating healthy but I can’t taste anything so I have no desire to work at making something nutritious. I know that I should lower my stress (stress decreases your immune system) but having snot-head makes me stressed.

Oh, but I did find something that helps clear my airways, at least for a while. Running. Seriously. I ran up the stairs for something last night and at the top of the stairs, I could breathe a little bit better. So I turned around and ran down and then back up and back down and did that about 6 times until I could breath clearly through both nostrils. It only lasts until I catch my breath but, oh, it is so wonderfully beautiful to be able to breath for that bit of time. So my daughter and I went to the park (I walked quickly and she rode her tricycle) and then we chased each other around the park until my other symptoms demanded that I stop before I fell over. Then, after laying her down for a nap, I wanted to nap but again, could not breathe. So I ran laps around our living room (very small laps) until I could breathe (the whole time sniffing Vicks Va-po-rub) then rubbed it on my chest and laid down for a nap. This evening we went for a walk/run around the block. It was great. She is a great running partner. Not so fast as to make me feel fat and slow but not so slow as to slow me down (one would have to be pretty darn slow to slow me down) and she tires of running about when I do. It’s great. By the time she’s 10, I should be in great shape!

Well, I am going to go take some more drugs, syrup, vitamins, and juice. Oh, and some chicken soup — I make killer chicken soup. (I am not trying to torture you, Nana, it’s just a simple fact.)

And I am babysitting again tomorrow. Hopefully I feel better. I guess I could go for walks with her and my daughter. maybe that would be a good idea.

so I am reading another book… December 16, 2006

So I am reading this book called “Letters From Mississippi…Personal reports from volunteers in the Summer Freedom Project, 1964, to their parents and friends.”

I feel pretty stupid but I didn’t realize that Mississippi was that big of a deal. The state refused to obey Federal law. Just out and out refused. And these volunteers are beaten and shot at (two were killed the first week of the project), arrested and beaten, chased with cars, run off the road, harassed. The voting registrar refuses to give the test to blacks and then when they are allowed to take the test, finds anything thing and everything wrong with it and rejects it. People are fired for registering to vote. Fired for allowing volunteers to stay at their homes. People who open their homes to the volunteers are threatened with bombings and sometimes not just threatened. The school houses are burned and/or bombed. Churches are bombed. The volunteers are kicked out a churches and read statements before the whole congregation about how evil they are and how they are ruining the perfection of race relations that Mississippi has.

It’s appalling. I am just embarrassed to find out that I really don’t know American history worth a darn. I don’t have any idea about the issues that have faced our country in the last hundred years. Guess I have a lot of researching to do.

Christmas Wish Lists December 14, 2006

We are working on our Christmas lists.  Ya know what?  I will just go ahead and tell you mine.  These are light things that we can take with us on a plane.

1.   Johnny Cash CD’s ….We already have Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison and A Boy Named Sue and Other Story Songs

1.b.   Dolly Parton — Silver Dagger

2.   Barlow Girl CD — Christian, preferably the one with “Not Your Average Girl” song on it only because I have heard clips of that album and not their newer one.

3.   Gift cards are always good.  Make sure that the store exists either where we are going (and you all know where that is) or maybe on the way there from here.  Or somewhere that we can shop online.  Borders (preferred over Barnes and Noble), Bath and Body Works, etc.

4.   An appointment calender book…I have a fairly specific style.  I want each week to have it’s own page with some sort of picture on the facing page.  I have seen a Far Side one and an MC Escher one that I liked.  The picture is on the left side and the week is on the right.  Something like that.  Either funny or pretty or mesmerizing. 

5.   Orginizational stuff (okay, this isn’t really light or plane compatable but it might be or maybe I could mail it to myself).  ooh ooh ooh  I just remember something.  A “tool box”  The kind that you would put nuts and bolts and screws and little thingys and wigits in.  It has little clear plastic drawers.  I would like something like that for my beads.  With many, many small drawers.  I found these bins that hang from the self above them.  They are really cool.  I think taht I could put a couple hundred of them to work.  Oh, a knife/wrench magnetic strip.  I’ve always wanted one of those.  They had them at camp and I think they are the neatest things.

6.   Beading tools.  If you go to a craft store that has jewelry making supplies (Micheal’s for you Iowans) you should find tools.  Like nylon jawed flat nosed pliers.  Nice sidecutters.  Flat/smooth nosed needle nosed pliers.  Chain nose pliers.  Round nose pliers (I think they might be the same as chain nose but I can’t remember).  Basically, I have three really cheap pliers.  They need to be replaced and there are half a dozen others that I would like to have.

7.   If this hasn’t given you some ideas, I don’t know what else to tell you.  Just give me cash, I guess. 

And my daughter’s list…Should I ask her? or choose for her?  Well, she’s asleep so I am going to choose for her.

1.   A Thomas the Tank engine train — there are numerous kinds out there.  There is a kind called “Take-a-longs”, sold at Walmart and Target.  That is not the kind we want.  They are a little smaller than the others and they don’t fit the wooden track.  Places like Thinker Toys, Micheal’s during the holidays, carry the ones that fit the wooden track.

2.   Wooden toys.  Target had a set of wooden blocks (plain and painted — plain preferred as the painted ones are very slippery against each other) for $10.  They also had some other wooden toys that I like but I can’t remember what they were.

3.   Also at Target they had a generic wooden train set.  There were a number of different sets.  As we have returned the Thomas table and train set to the neightboors, a set of her own, would not be amiss.  Talk to us before purchasing as we are thinking of getting her some – but more sets mean more fun tracks so just give us a call.

4.   Any crafty thing that she can do.  She loves to glue.  So if there is a glue that is easy for a 3 year old to use, buy us some!!!

5.   Sunglasses.

6.   Tatoos (temperary)

7.   Any musical/noise making instruments.  She loves it and as we are training her to be as annoying as we are, we don’t mind.

    I can’t think of anything else.  Oh, maybe some little girl nail polish.  I think she would like to paint her nails (with some adult supervision of course)  Oh, and as always, books are always welcome.   We have read a number of the Thomas the Tank Engine books and have found that the original ones are great but the ones that are based off of the television series really suck so if you find some (probably at a thrift store as new they are fairly pricey) please just read through it and if it’s stupid or there’s no clear cut moral to the story, skip it because, seriously, some of them are really horrible.

I can think of a few things that my husband would like. 

1.   Metallica CD — S & M  ; Metallica’s orchestral album

2.   Gift card to Border’s

3.   hideously ugly ties…just kidding

4.   any episodes of Family Guy

5.   A t-shirt that says “I’m appalled”  (Please check spelling)

6.   A Nintendo Wii  (Hey, it’s a wish list, not a likely to get list)

7.   A PS2, and the game Champions of Norath (a role-playing adventure game)

Okay that really is all I can think of … all, like it’s a short list.  Ha!  Anyway.  We love you all and can’t wait to see those of you that we are going to see…Sorry Nana and James and Ellen. I am sure that my parents would put you up if you wanted to come and see us.  

I MADE $30 BUCKS!!! December 13, 2006

I made thirty bucks today.  “For doing what?” you ask.  “Absolutely nothing,” I answer.  I watched a 10 month old girl.  She did want to be held most the time but she’s really tiny so I didn’t really mind.  I will be watching her again on Monday and then during January, I am going to watch her 2 to 3 days a week.  Oh, and today was just a half day.  On full days I will get $50 a day.  Fifty bucks for doing what I normally do.  Of course, I don’t normally change diapers but I guess I can remember how.

I don’t really have anything more to say.  I am going to post this and then blog my Christmas list and then my daughters.  My husband will just have to do his own as he hasn’t left me with one.

Ahhh, the attempts at a social life December 10, 2006

Well, I here that this is a special situation and that almost any other base will be better.  It is next to impossible to get people involved here.  We had a Christams party tonight.  There were three couples, myself, (my hubby was working), and two kids, mine and a two year old.  We were in a room who’s maximum number of people was 183.  We did have some good food but there was lots left over (which was good because I love calico beans).  There was a gift exchange.  I guess I misunderstood the purpose of the gift exchange.  I found something for less then $5 that was really good (two bags of Hershey’s kisses in a Christmas bucket that I have moved three times and never used) and I received three floating holly candles.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually like them, but wait till you hear about the kids exchange.
Again, I misunderstood.  I got a cool kids toy.  Something that I knew my daughter would like and I figured other kids would like.  I didn’t want to buy some cheap piece of crap that would get thrown away the next day.  I didn’t stay under $5 on this one, I spent like $7.50 and got a set of wooden blocks.  They were way cool.  And my daughter got a Dollar Store magna doodle.  It’s cool and the pen isn’t broken (I stepped on the one that she already had and broke it) so that’s good, but it just felt so cheap after I put so much though into what we brought.  SIGH.
Oh well.  I know that sometimes it takes a while to get into the swing of things.  And next time, I will try to help some in the set up of the parties.  Like, this room was divideable.  We could have closed off three fourths of the room and had a much more appropiately sized room for the number of people that we had.
Oh, and it was pouring rain when we got there.  I mean pouring.  And then it was pouring when I got home and because I had gotten a ride, I didn’t have the garage door opener so I had to run around the houses, fell in the front yard, rolled and was back on my feet (I bet it looked hilarious, this fat woman, running through the rain, tripping over her own feet, rolling head over heels right back onto her feet and then continuing to run), through the back yard and then unloaded my stuff.  I was soaked.  Had water running down my forehead. 
And my daughter had waaaaaaaaaaaaay too much sugar.  It was 11 pm before she finally quit crying and hollering “But I’m not tired!” and what not.  But now the house is silent and I should be going to bed but I don’t want too.  I have so many things that I should be doing.
I have Heather’s wedding gift to work on, Katies’s Christmas gift to work on, Christmas cards to work on, moving stuff to organize, (we know where we are going by the way so give us a call), dishes to wash, laundry to do, etc.  But here I sit, pouring my heart out to the masses (or at least my friends and their friends).
Well, I think I will do some of those things that I mentioned and end this blog.  Later.

Life moves on and that’s weird December 6, 2006

I realized something the other day.  I am getting older.  I know that seems so obvious but it just hit me.  Not so much that I’m getting older but that life is not turning out like I expected.  When my husband and I were dating and then when we were engaged, I had certain expectations of my life.  Some of them were naive, some were cultural misconceptions, some were out and out wrong, some were wishful thinking, and some were on track.  But regardless, those expectations have not been met.  Some of them have been surpassed by something better.
    Example.  I had wanted at least five kids.  I figured that we were going to have them one right after the other, 18 months apart.  Well, that obviously wasn’t God’s plan.  We have one beautiful almost three year old daughter and there aren’t any others on the horizon.  If we continue to be fertile at our current rate, we aren’t going to have 5+ children.  It’s not so much weird to not have lots of kids, but weird to be okay with it.  If our daughter is the only one we ever have, I am okay with it.  It is a big adjustment but I’m okay with it.
    I never thougth that I would live in California.  I wanted to stay in the Midwest.  Far enough from family that we are on our own but close enough to visit when we wanted to.  But now I am okay with living far from our family and friends.  It’s hard.  Very hard at times, but it opens up avenues of experience which open to me if I’m unwilling to go through some “hard” stuff.
    I never thought that I would do the “military” thing.  Certainly never envisioned myself as the involved military spouse I am trying to become.
    It is just so strange to realize that I have grown up.  I am an adult.  I have a credit card (which they keep raising the limit on, much to my consternation).  I have AAA.  If I get stranded, I call a tow truck and not my dad (although I would rather call my dad).  I could call a taxi if I needed to.  I am going to fly on an airplane (very excited about the plane trip).  I moved across the country on my own (with Nana’s help and cell phone).  I was a single mom for 2 1/2 months and I am going to do it again here soon.  And I’m okay.  I have my ups and downs but I am learning and growing and becoming the person that I wanted to be.  I didn’t know and still don’t know, how the final picture will look but, man, is it fun to work on.
Love you all and look forward to having you by my side as I travel this exciting road which is before me.

Feeling Blue December 4, 2006

I don’t really have any reason to feel blue.   But I in fact, do feel blue.  I think that part of it is, I have been trying to do more creative things.  I have been making jewelry and painting wrapping paper and making Christmasy stuff.  All of this stuff makes me feel great…while I am doing it.  I think that I get like a creative high while doing it and for a little while after.  But the come down hurts.  And I think that’s what is happening.  I think that it’s worth it.  I really enjoy being creative and I think that I can adjust but it’s hard right now.
Hence the “sigh”.
But I made some really cool stuff last night.  I have wanted to do wire wrapping for a long time and I finally tried it.  I made two pendants (one I will have to rewrap), a ring, and a charm.  It was so much fun that I actually had to convince myself that since I could no longer focus my eyes, I should go to bed.
Same thing happened the other night.  I was having such a blast painting wrapping paper that I couldn’t make myself go to bed.
Maybe I am feeling blue because I am not getting enough sleep. Hmmm.  Maybe I should go get in my pajamas, grab my teddy bear (a.k.a. my hubby) and crawl into bed.  But the house is so quiet with the young missus in bed.  Again, “Sigh”.

As they say…Kids say the darndest things. December 1, 2006

Jael walked up to a sign the other day and said, “H… I… S… T… O… R… I… C… A… L… M. ..A… R… K… E… R.  That spells…sign.”